Sunday, September 30, 2018

Is This Where Our School Tax Dollars End Up?

A reader sent me this photograph of a dumpster at the now abandoned John L. Edwards School. Yes, that's a piano in there, along with several desks.

If memory serves, when HCSD closed the Greenport School some years ago, there was a sale of the school's furnishings and equipment. It probably didn't bring in lots of money, but an effort was made. To my knowledge, there was no attempt to sell or re-home any of this stuff, but I could have missed the notice. Checking the HCSD website just now, it seems the only thing deemed worthy of repurposing are the old wooden bleachers from the high school gym, pieces of which are being sold as souvenirs in a fundraiser.

COPYRIGHT 2018 CAROLE OSTERINK

3 comments:

  1. the Hudson City School System costs more per student than private Albany Academy -- there is plenty of money to waste -- its one of the most expensive and worst school systems in the State -- still !!!

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  2. I dug around that dumpster twice. I could find only one decent student desk, though it was a little unstable. Everything else was in disrepair -- including the piano. My assessment is this: almost everything in there was beyond use before it entered the dumpster. HOWEVER, lots of the items were made of metal and should have been kept out of there and sent to scrap metal. That definitely should have been done. It's smart, saves the planet and money, and sends a positive message to CHILDREN! The Cityof Hudson generally does not have a good attitude toward solid waste management. Maybe it's time for some sort of movement.

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  3. Don't let a dumpster and a few old tables obscure the fact that Superintendent Suttmeier and her board took the decisive action to consolidate in the face of diminishing enrollment; a savings to taxpayers of millions of dollars. Yes, there are continuing educational challenges, but the district is now better prepared (fiscally) to tackle those challenges than anytime in the last 20 years. Now we need more community members to step up to the plate and reclaim their school district.

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